Study finds hormonal response to cardio training is different from that to weight training
How you work out may have an effect on your hormones. And whether you choose to go for a run every morning or do weights in the gym can determine how your body’s endocrine system – that deals with hormones – responds.
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have come closer to understanding the diverse effects of different forms of training. In a new study published in the scientific Journal of Clinical Investigation – Insight, the researchers show that cardio training on an exercise bike causes three times as large an increase in the production of the hormone FGF21 than strength training with weights. FGF21 has a lot of positive effects on metabolism.
‘Of course it is very exciting for us researchers to see how different forms of physical activity actually affect the body differently. We have known about the effects of various forms of training on more well-known hormones like adrenalin and insulin for a long time, but the fact that strength training and cardio exercise affect FGF hormones differently is new to us’, says Associate Professor from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research Christoffer Clemmensen, who is one of the researchers behind the study.
The researchers will now look more closely at other links between hormones involved in both metabolism and exercise
The researchers have studied the effects on 10 healthy young men, who had been randomly divided into two groups and did both forms of training once a week. Both training forms were relatively hard and lasted 60 minutes. The cardio exercise consisted of cycling at a level of 70 percent maximum oxygen intake, while the strength training consisted of five exercises repeated 5 x 10 times and involving the main muscle groups in the body.
‘Endurance training on a bicycle has such a marked effect on the metabolic hormone that we know ought to take a closer look at whether this regulation of FGF21 is directly related to the health-improving effects of cardio exercise. FGF21’s potential as a drug against diabetes, obesity and similar metabolic disorders is currently being tested, so the fact that we are able to increase the production ourselves through training is interesting’, Christoffer Clemmensen elaborates.
The researchers also measured the content in the blood of another hormone, FGF19, which among other things has been linked to muscle growth in animal tests. Due to these previous studies the researchers expected the strength training to have an effect on this hormone. However, the results proved them wrong.
‘Directly contrary to our hypothesis the production of the growth hormone FGF19 actually dropped slightly after strength training. To me, that stresses that there is something about the effect of strength training that we simply have too little knowledge of. And of course that gives rise to more research’, says co-author of the study Jørn Wulff Helge, Professor of Physical Activity and Health at the Center for Healthy Aging and the Department of Biomedical Sciences.
The researchers will now look more closely at other links between hormones involved in both metabolism and exercise.
